Review: EPCOT’s new La Crêperie de Paris
Growing up in the late ’70s, I used to help my mom make savory crêpes for dinner, usually with leftover chicken in a creamy sauce. (I’m pretty sure crêpe makers were popular right after fondue parties.) Years later, when my husband and I visited Quebec City on a cold December weekend, one of our favorite spots was a crowded, steamy little crêperie where the tables were jam-packed around the chef’s giant griddle.
With my love of crêpes well-established, I have been eagerly awaiting La Crêperie de Paris, the new table-service restaurant in EPCOT’s France expansion that would serve both savory galettes and sweet crêpes.
We stopped in on opening day to grab a table for dinner. For now, you don’t need reservations, though that could change. We walked in around 5:30 in the evening and had no wait, but it did get more crowded as the evening went on.
The restaurant itself is fairly small, with maybe two dozen tables, depending on their configuration. The space evokes an old building remade into a modern space, with stone walls and wooden ceiling beams set off by modern fixtures. It’s clearly not meant to be a reproduction of an old restaurant, but rather a chic new eatery built in an old building.
We opted to try the $34.99 three-course prix fixe menu, which includes a soup or salad, galette and crêpe. The soup of the day was a creamy potato leek with delicate flavors, surprisingly nice on a hot day. The salad is a basic garden salad made with crispy mixed greens (no iceberg lettuce here) and a vinaigrette dressing.
The next course was a choice of one of six galettes:
- Classique: ham, egg, Swiss cheese
- Poulet: chicken, bechamel cheese sauce, mushrooms
- Chèvre: goat cheese, spinach, walnuts
- Saumon: smoked salmon, crème fraiche, chives, lemon
- Ratatouille: tomato, zucchini, eggplant
- Savoyarde: Raclette cheese, onions, imported Bayonne ham
We chose the Savoyarde and the poulet to get some variety. Each dish starts with a thin buckwheat galette roughly the size of a dinner plate, folded in from the edges. Although the poulet took me right back into the kitchen with my mom, I actually preferred the Savoyarde for the excellent shaved ham.
For the finale, we had to choose among a selection of five sweet crêpes:
- Gourmande: hazelnut chocolate spread, whipped cream
- Banane: banana, caramel beurre salé
- Melba: peach, red berries sauce, almonds
- Poire: pear, chocolate ganache, whipped cream
- Pomme: caramelized apples, caramel beurre sale
We chose two that were quite similar: the banane (yes, it’s pronounced just like banana; we asked) and the pomme. These desserts are the same size as the galettes. Don’t expect them to be super-sweet. While the pomme sounds just like apple pie, it has a bitterness you don’t find in the sweet American dessert.
There is also a selection of traditional hard ciders imported from the Brittany region of France that inspired the restaurant.
We look forward to going back, but next time we will try the walk-up window, known as Crêpes À Emporter by La Crêperie de Paris.
The walk-up window has a smaller, slighly different menu, featuring three savory galettes (cream of brie cheese; ratatouille; and bechamel, cheese and ham) and four sweet crêpes (butter and sugar; hazelnut and chocolate; red berries; and vanilla or chocolate ice cream). In addition, it serves soft-service ice cream and a variety of ciders and wine.
I already know what I want to try next.
Until next time, bon appétit!
